Bork got a hearing, did he not?
Whether Garland would have been confirmed is immaterial. He was nominated by the president, and the Senate, given ample time to consider the nomination, deliberately chose dereliction of duty, thereby abdicating their constitutionally mandated function.
The fact that bork was the dude who caved to Nixon when everyone else resigned… That didn’t help his confirmation.
But he had a hearing.
Yes, he did. I said both now and then that Garland he deserved one. But if he a got hearing or not is immaterial,he wasn’t getting confirmed. It is not like that Garland getting a hearing would have changed this Scotus, decision or any other. If you want to say McConnell actions added to the polarization of the country, I’d agree.
But there has been politicization of the Supreme Court, my entire life. Generally if Democrats are replacing a liberal with a liberal, or Republican a conservative with a conservative, there is bipartisan support. But when your replace a conservative with a liberal of vice versa there will be fight. So its hardly dereliction of duty.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States
Neither advice nor consent were given. The Senate under McConnell refused to even do its basic due diligence under the Constitution. They’ve given up even the vaguest pretense of attempting to govern for the good of the country rather than to maintain their grip on power.
Again, you claim Garland is a liberal, which I don’t think is the case.
This seems to be a common tactic of conservative, to claim anyone on the left of them is liberal, when the truth is most of them are reactionaries.
Yeah. This is another case if Democrats did something like that there would be hell to pay, and not just from the GOP, but Republicans do it and /shrug. I don’t know how McConnel knew he could get away with it, nor do I understand Democrats just acquiescing with nary a fight. I suppose it’s just another symptom of our broken political system [edit: and national media.]
Edit 2: I like this NYMAG op-ed.
But Democrats forfeited this opportunity. Obama nominated the most blandly inoffensive left-of-center jurist he could find, on the presumption that if he showed some deference to Mitch McConnell’s caucus, they would have no choice but to hand over the conservative movement’s most-prized possession. This would have been an understandable gambit in the first year of his presidency; in the last, it was incomprehensible. When had congressional Republicans ever given Obama cause for believing that forbearance and compromise would be rewarded? When had they given him cause to doubt their commitment to preserving a reactionary judiciary?
Obama’s error was then compounded by the Democratic campaign aides and consultants who organized the “We Need Nine” project. This campaign was the party’s primary effort to rally public support for Garland’s nomination. And, as its title suggests, the campaign’s core arguments were procedural: The Senate had a duty to confirm any qualified justice put forward by the sitting president; nine was a more appropriate number of Supreme Court justices than eight.
The Dems thought Hillary was going to win cause wtf Trump? Same as Comey. What a mess all of that assumption of rationality and critical thinking is causing the country now.
I’m in better to position to judge liberal than you are. I’ve voted for as many Democratic as Republican in over the last 3 election cycles. Back in 2016, when I was still a Republican, the only Senator who was possibly was more liberal than I, is Sen. Collins, I’m not positive about that.
When,Garland was nominated, I read several article in National Review, Weekly Standard, and maybe others by lawyers. I was convinced that he was liberal after reading the articles. I would have definitely voted against him because he was replacing Scalia, if it had been RBG, or Breyer than I might have voted for him.
I agree with article that @MrGrumpy linked Garland “is blandly inoffensive left-of-center jurist”. He certainly didn’t have the track record or brilliance of either Ginsberg, or Scalia, nor the wit of Roberts. He is just garden variety, competent liberal judge.
The only justice Obama was going to get approved, (or should be approved) is somebody that was going to have at least 10 Democratic Senator oppose him because he was too conservative. Unless you can name the 10 Democratic Senator that would vote him Garland, it is pointless discussion.
Conservative howled when Reagan nominated Kennedy and for good reasons. A true compromise candidate would be somebody that you and MrGrumpy would complain about, and Bernie Sanders would have fillibustered.
Sorry, that isn’t how it works. It was about time that our reactionary Supreme Court moved to be more moderate.
Keep in mind, in the 60s and 70s, the Supreme Court was ahead of the curve when it came to civil rights and freedoms and these days, the Supreme Court is clearly being dragged along kicking and screening in the wake of society. It was years behind on Gay Marriage, compared to multiracial marriage just a generation ago. And it’s all because the Baby Boomer Generation has stayed in power a lot longer than any generation before it.
As to you qualifications, it seems to me that most retirees have mostly checked out when it comes to the politics of the mainland. It’s not like they live or work in the Main Street economy, where people have families and neighbors to take care of.
FDR tried to change the size of the SCOTUS so he could pack it with judges who would accept his views.
But I think the public’s perception of the SCOTUS as being a political beast has been there since the Warren days.
It seems somewhat worse now than it did when I was younger.
I mean, at this point, you have most folks thinking that the SCOTUS justices act based on entirely partisan values… and that is not even remotely true. Most cases decided by the SCOTUS are not decided along partisan lines.
There are definitely cases which break on partisan lines, but I think that the justices do in fact have something deeper than just partisan hackery going on. And you periodically see this, when a justice who is generally regarded as “conservative” doesn’t rule along with the far right wing pundits. Because… they’re actually judges, and not just hacks.
I dunno about that. I think it’s not as bad as people think. Most people think it’s 4 conservatives, 4 liberals and Kennedy. I think it’s more 2/2/5. You can pretty much assure that Ginsburg is going to vote the liberal position and that Alito and Thomas will vote the conservative position on nearly everything. Sotomeyer’s position on Janus seems to be… fuck the First Amendment, what about the unions income sources? Which isn’t a great look. Still early with her, but still.
I think they can generally back up their positions, but a lot of the times it’s a reaaaaal fucking stretch with some of them.
Which is why I miss Scalia. I fucking hated most of his decisions, but he was internally consistent. Hell, he said burning the flag is protected speech. That took some balls.
I do think as a talking point the idea of the SCOTUS “making law” has been around for awhile but both sides fear of the other getting to make SCOTUS picks seems a more recent thing.
Yeah, that started with Bork probably. But he was also someone who never should have been nominated imo.
Ya, I can agree with this.
Scalia, especially in his prime, had one of the greatest legal minds of our generation.
Sure and Rommel was one of the greatest generals of World War 2. Being great doesn’t mean you were on the right side of history.
“Sotomeyer’s position on Janus seems to be… fuck the First Amendment, what about the unions income sources? Which isn’t a great look. Still early with her, but still.”
She is the most predictable of the judges and not in a good way. She seems to view the role of judges to advance partisan politics with not even a hint of underlying judicial philosophy. Free speech not so good when utilized by people she doesn’t like. I get the sense that she’s not very persuasive by the right which will make it tougher to convince colleagues. She will be a very liable progressive vote but not very influential in terms of judicial reasoning or legacy.
Kagan is far more interesting and consequential. She has some core beliefs that she votes on leading to some surprising switches and seems likely to a pivotal center of the court (center in meaning while clearly on left able to cross-over on opinions like a Breyer/Kennedy. An updated Souter).
I’d note that many on the right haven’t forgotten the fate of Miguel Estrada who was successfully filibustered in part to prevent a conservative hispanic from reaching a federal court position where he could springboard to the Supreme Court. That was another norm breaking filibuster that is remembered by the right and not by the left.
On Civil War 2, things are better than many other low points in history. But I think that rise of social media is a huge danger as it 1) atomizes society and makes people think things are worse 2) breaks down institutions that acted as a restraining bolt on politics/discourse. Bewildering to me when I see things like we’re more racist now than before or things are more violent now than before. just factually incorrect on both accounts. But I do see that a weirdo racist, zealot, crank can garner far more attention than ever before to make it look like the extremes are more prevalent/important than they are.
Kagen wrote the dissent on Janus, not Sotomayor. The latter wrote the dissent on the travel ban and the gerrymander case. And while you are entitled to your opinions, you’re merely repeating GOP talking points. Here’s an example of Sotmayor’s ruling on free speech (emphasis mine):
In Pappas v. Giuliani (2002),[138] Sotomayor dissented from her colleagues’ ruling that the New York Police Department could terminate from his desk job an employee who sent racist materials through the mail. Sotomayor argued that the First Amendment protected speech by the employee “away from the office, on [his] own time”, even if that speech was “offensive, hateful, and insulting”, and that therefore the employee’s First Amendment claim should have gone to trial rather than being dismissed on summary judgment.
District of Columbia v. Heller profoundly illustrates how constitutional decision making will often inevitably be a product of the Justices’’ views. Conservatives long have favored gun rights and Justice Scalia took this position, even though it required him to abandon the conclusions that should have followed from his traditional methods of constitutional interpretation. The case thus powerfully demonstrates that Justice Scalia’’s constitutional rulings, despite his professions to the contrary, ultimately are animated by his conservative politics.
The recent SCOTUS rulings found that trump’s comments are irrelevant to his EO but not the comments from CO commissioners (on the wedding cake thing). They ignored the Voting Rights act and ruled in favor of racial gerrymandering in TX, overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of American Express (again they find in favor of corporate power), and overturned a CA law meant to protect women from insidious practices by so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers. All of these are partisan, and some of these do actual harm - and that is why “conservative” judges represent a danger to a significant swathe of the American electorate.
All that said, I do agree with you on the dangers of social media (just this morning, a quote attributed to Harley Davidson’s CEO calling trump a moron was made up by someone on twitter until it was retweeted as truth. HD’s CEO did not in fact say anything about trump.)
So where does Kennedy retiring fit on the scale of “Signs we’re about to have a Civil War”?